Gossip Wolf: Does That Dog Have an Agent Yet?

LA PMA punk duo No Age played with an extra member at SXSW last weekend: Cundo Bermudez (Wrangler Brutes, Nazti Skinz), who worked as the recording engineer on some of the duo's early 12-inches. Contrary to a report on the Los Angeles Times music blog, drummer Dean Spunt told Gossip Wolf that Bermudez is only a temporary touring member, but they are "hoping to find a permanent third." May we suggest Craigslist's "Casual Encounters" section?

No Age cohort David Scott Stone, who records for Spunt's PPM label, has joined LCD Soundsystem as a touring guitarist, in place of Al Doyle, who's busy with Hot Chip. Stone has also toured with the Melvins, the Locust, and Unwound, among others.

Peaches's video for "Billionaire" (featuring Shunda K from Yo Majesty), directed by Ssion front man/midwestern queer icon Cody Critcheloe and shot in his Kansas City loft in one day in December, debuted this week. Critcheloe described it to Gossip Wolf as a "militant feminist take on TheWizard of Oz" and added that "it's sort of a parody of being 'styled' or 'styling' . . . like if Lady Gaga was on crack and had a $10 budget to work with and her Haus of Gaga creative team consisted of stoned teenagers."

One-man band Hawnay Troof (aka Vice Cooler) performed only once at this year's SXSW, but it was certainly memorable. After he took his act into the audience at an outdoor KXLU/olFactory Records party, Cooler was nearly upstaged by an excited bulldog who had been wandering around the show. Ever the professional, Cooler kept performing even as the dog nipped, clawed, and humped him.

A brainchild of Todd P, beloved promoter/locus of the Brooklyn DIY party scene, the three-day, 75-band outdoor MtyMx festival—located in Monterrey, Mexico, and scheduled to piggyback on SXSW—ran into a slew of transportation problems. The buses hired to run hundreds of attendees and bands from Austin to the festival site, about six and a half hours southwest, left many on the curb instead, with people queuing for 6 AM buses that arrived 8 to 12 hours later. Performers who canceled included Fucked Up, Javelin, No Age, Talk Normal, and Washed Out; Neon Indian, Das Racist, and other bands played on.

Sound Culture's Nomadic World Festival kicks off April 1 and runs through the end of the month at Morseland, Logan Square Auditorium, Las Tablas, Rumba, and Subterranean. The second annual fest, which is neither by nor for nomads, showcases a diverse range of international acts, including Brazilian Grammy nominees Orquestra Contemporanea de Olinda, Malian kora player Yacouba Sissoko, British DJ/tabla player Talvin Singh, and others; several performances are Chicago debuts. For updates on the lineup and tickets, follow @SoundCulture on Twitter.

Man With the Golden Dome: Billy Corgan has hired legendary Chicago photojournalist Art Shay to document his ambitious new project, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, a tarot-based 44-song concept album to be released one free track at a time. Corgan is a longtime fan of Shay, the former Life magazine photographer famous for being Nelson Algren's photojournalistic Boswell. The two met when Shay, now 88, auditioned for the band following the 1999 departure of original bassist D'arcy Wretzky.

Former Chicago DIY pop wunderkind Graham Smith has been releasing records as Kleenex Girl Wonder since he was in high school; the band hit the seven-year mark last month. Smith has just released his tenth long-player, Accept the Mystery, under his own name; it's available as a paid download via his Web site, kgw.me. Physical copies will ship to record stores at the end of March.

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